CYTOTOXICITY AGAINST CANCER CELLS OF THAI MEDICINAL RECIPES: TRIPHALA, BENJAKUL AND BENJALOKWICHIAN

Cytotoxic activity of three Thai medicinal plant recipes, Benjalokwichien, Benjakul and Triphala, Benjalokwichien recipe consists of Capparis micracantha, Tiliacora triandra, Harrisonia perforata, Tacca leontopetaloides and Ficus racemosa. Benjakul recipe consists of Piper retrofractum, Piper interruptum, Zingiber officinale, Plumbago indica and Piper sarmentosum. Triphala consists of Terminalia chebula, Terminalia bellerica and Phyllanthus emblica. Cytotoxicity effects of water and methanol extracts from all plants were studied with 5 types of cancer cells; colon cancer (SW620), lung cancer (Chago), breast cancer (BT474), gastric cancer (KATO-III) and liver cancer (Hep-G2). Methanol extract of Plumbago indica root was toxic to colon cancer cells and liver cancer cells with the lowest percent survival of cancer cells at 11.67  0.01 and 15.74  0.03 percent, respectively. Methanol extract of Zingiber officinale rhizome was toxic to lung cancer cells and gastric cancer cells with the lowest percent survival of cancer cells at 6.67  0.02 and 14.23  0.01 percent, respectively. Methanol extracts of Zingiber officinale rhizome and Plumbago indica root were toxic to breast cancer cells with the lowest percent survival of cancer cells at 27.30  0.00 percent. Methanol extract of Plumbago indica root was toxic to five cancer cells with the lowest percent cell survival. Therefore, it was very interesting to isolated compounds from methanol extracts of P. indica L. for anti-cancer activity test. It was separated to obtain 5 compounds; 5-hydroxy-2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (plumbagin), 17-(5-Ethyl-6-methylheptan-2-yl)-10,13-dimethyl-2,3,4,7, 8, 9, 11, 12,14,15,16,17-dodecahydro-1H-cyclopenta[a] phenan thren-3-ol (beta sitosterol), 2,8-dihydroxy-3-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (droserone), (3R ,4R)-4,8-dihydroxy-3-methyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-naphthalen-1-one (isoshinanolone) and unknown 5. All of them showed strong cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines. unknown 5 showed strongest activity against BT474, Chago, SW620 and Hep-G2 cancer cell lines with IC50 0.13  0.07, 0.10  0.02, 0.11  0.09 and 0.10  0.02 µg/ml, respectively. Plumbagin showed strongest activity against KATO-III cancer cell line with IC50 0.0016  0.001 µg/ml less than IC50 of doxorubicin 475 times. The results indicated that compound extracted from roots of Plumbago indica L. may be developed to be human gastric carcinoma drug in the future.